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arXiv:quant-ph/0312176 · The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science

Minimal Assumption Derivation of a Bell-type Inequality

Gerd Graßhoff, Samuel Portmann, Adrian Wüthrich

Published Oct 19, 2005• 64 citations
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Abstract

John Bell showed that a big class of local hidden-variable models stands in conflict with quantum mechanics and experiment. Recently, there were suggestions that empirically adequate hidden-variable models might exist which presuppose a weaker notion of local causality. We will show that a Bell-type inequality can be derived also from these weaker assumptions. 1. Introduction2. The EPR-Bohm experiment3. Local causality4. Bell's inequality from separate common causes4.1A weak screening-off principle4.2Perfect correlation and ‘determinism’4.3A minimal theory for spins4.4No conspiracy5. Discussion

DOI
10.1093/bjps/axi140

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John Bell showed that a big class of local hidden-variable models stands in conflict with quantum mechanics and experiment. Recently, there were suggestions that empirically adequate hidden-variable models might exist which presuppose a weaker notion of local causality. We will show that a Bell-type inequality can be derived also from these weaker assumptions. 1. Introduction2. The EPR-Bohm experiment3. Local causality4. Bell's inequality from separate common causes4.1A weak screening-off principle4.2Perfect correlation and ‘determinism’4.3A minimal theory for spins4.4No conspiracy5. Discussion
John Stewart Bell’s famous theorem is widely regarded as one of the most important developments in the foundations of physics. Yet even as we approach the 50th anniversary of Bell’s discovery, its meaning and implications remain controversial. Many workers assert that Bell’s theorem refutes the possibility suggested by Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen (EPR) of supplementing ordinary quantum theory with “hidden” variables that might restore determinism and/or some notion of an observer-independent reality. But Bell himself interpreted the theorem very differently—as establishing an “essential conflict” between the well-tested empirical predictions of quantum theory and relativistic local causality. Our goal is to make Bell’s own views more widely known and to explain Bell’s little-known formulation of the concept of relativistic local causality on which his theorem rests. We also show precisely how Bell’s formulation of local causality can be used to derive an empirically testable Bell-type inequality and to recapitulate the EPR argument.
Bell inequality is violated in quantum mechanics and in experiments. Bell's theorem, on the other hand, concludes that quantum physics or nature is hence nonlocal. Bell's derivation of such a theorem comes in two versions, BT1 in which he started with determinism assumption in his 1964 original paper, and BT2 in his 1976 paper where he started with a "local causality" condition (LC). In this paper we show that (LC) does not follow from the physical concept of local causality except in the determinism limit. A local hidden variable model for the singlet pair is given that yields the correct quantum predictions for pair correlations. We also show determinism flagrantly violates quantum predictions. Thus Bell's theorem has no scope of applicability on possible hidden variable theory for quantum mechanics.
Abstract One of the Bell’s assumptions in the original derivation of his inequalities was the hypothesis of locality, i.e., the absence of the influence of two remote measuring instruments on one another. That is why violations of these inequalities observed in experiments are often interpreted as a manifestation of the nonlocal nature of quantum mechanics, or a refutation of a local realism. It is well known that the Bell’s inequality was derived in its traditional form, without resorting to the hypothesis of locality and without the introduction of hidden variables, the only assumption being that the probability distributions are nonnegative. This can therefore be regarded as a rigorous proof that the hypothesis of locality and the hypothesis of existence of the hidden variables not relevant to violations of Bell’s inequalities. The physical meaning of the obtained results is examined. Physical nature of the violation of the Bell inequalities is explained under new EPR-B nonlocality postulate. We show that the correlations of the observables involved in the Bohm–Bell type experiments can be expressed as correlations of classical random variables. The revisited Bell type inequality in canonical notatons reads 〈AB〉 + 〈A’B〉 + 〈AB’〉 − 〈A’B’〉 ⩽ 6.
The conceptually puzzling features of quantum mechanics as a statistical theory all have their source in the impossibility of relating the probability assignments defined by the quantum state to distributions over determinate values of the physical magnitudes. While some interpretations of quantum mechanics, as well as “hidden variable” modifications of the theory, have proposed several constructions for assigning values to magnitudes (beyond the value assignments defined by the quantum state alone), a variety of theorems exist which impose severe restrictions on such theoretical constructions. This note will deal with Bell's proof (in [2]), that any hidden variable theory satisfying a physically reasonable locality condition is characterized by an inequality which is inconsistent with the quantum statistics. Bell's result has initiated a series of experiments designed to refute the entire class of local hidden variable theories. We show that Bell's inequality actually characterizes a feature of hidden variable theories which is much weaker than locality in the sense considered physically motivated.
We discuss the role of counter-factual meaningfulness (a weaker cousin of "counter-factual definiteness") as a premise in the derivation of the Bell and CHSH inequalities. The basic question motivating the discussion is this: can the CHSH inequality, unlike the original Bell inequality, be derived without making a hidden-variables (or equivalent counter-factual definiteness) assumption? We answer, somewhat tentatively, in the negative, and suggest that an appropriately-modified version of the EPR argument is needed to rigorously establish that the empirical violation of Bell-type inequalities can only be blamed on the failure, in nature, of local causality.